Hiraeth
by wondersing
Summary: AU - Midoriya Izuku is kidnapped for his high IQ. The others are taken for their Quirks.
1. One - to be clever

**Title: Hiraeth**

 **Summary: AU – Midoriya Izuku is kidnapped for his high IQ. The others are taken for their Quirks.**

 **Author's Note: This feels a little short, actually. And a little unedited. Haha...**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own BnHA. I'd like to, though :)**

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 **One – to be clever**

You see, they take an IQ test in school, when they're six. Why? They just do. Every child in the country does.

Izuku has always been an intelligent boy. He spoke his first words at a late thirteen months old, but what came out of his mouth was a full, impressively clear sentence, one which included the words 'please', 'biscuits', and 'thank you'. It was very polite for a one-year-old. Ever since then, Inko, like all proud parents, has known that Izuku is special. _More_ than special.

The IQ test is given when they are six years old, around two years after most Quirks first show. It is long but made of simple questions, ones which should be understandable, if barely, for young children. They're supposed to take it again in middle school, and take another test in their first year of high school.

At six years old, Izuku gets a high score. A _very_ high score. Inko receives the report in the mail and spends a few minutes just blinking down at the letter. Then she calls Izuku down for celebratory cake.

Izuku is happy that his mom is happy. The only thing that will make the day better is if he finally, finally manifests his Quirk.

They went to the doctor when he was five, after all the other kids in his kindergarten class got their Quirks except for Sawada and Kiraba. He had an inkling, at first, that maybe he's like them and simply doesn't have one, but Dr. Tsubasa showed them an X-ray image of his foot. He's missing some kind of bone, so it's very likely that he's just a late bloomer, Dr. Tsubasa said.

Still, most people at school have taken to treating him like he's Quirkless. Which, he supposes he is, at the moment. It – it's not bad. Really, he swears.

Kacchan – Kacchan is mean all the time, but he's particularly mean about Izuku's late Quirk. "Deku," he sneers at Izuku now, sparks crackling in his palms intimidatingly. 'Deku' means 'useless'. Kacchan wouldn't actually use his Quirk on him, Izuku knows, because Kacchan isn't stupid enough to get in trouble like that, but Izuku does his best to look properly intimidated.

Although Kacchan might not be willing to use his Quirk on others ( _yet_ , something in his mind whispers), he's more than willing to utilise his fists and sharp tongue. Izuku is a kind child, and he can take Kacchan's growing, careless cruelty any time, but he _cannot_ stand Kacchan speaking to other children like that. Izuku cries so much that it doesn't matter if Kacchan drives him to tears – but the kids at the park, or at school? It matters a lot to him, if Kacchan makes them cry.

He stands up to Kacchan when he is six. They're at the park near his house.

It doesn't work.

"Deku doesn't even have a Quirk!" one of Kacchan's friends laughs as they walk away. "And he thinks he's so great 'cause of some dumb test!"

It's not dumb, Izuku mouths to himself.

From where he lies on the grass, Izuku can't see Kacchan's face. He imagines his once-friend is grinning.

The Quirkless boy he tried to defend, one from another school – because Kacchan won't risk somebody at their school telling a teacher, and Izuku won't tell because he isn't a tattletale – scrambles away, not bothering to thank Izuku or help him up. He sits up by himself, squinting away from the setting sun.

It's almost time to walk home, only a few streets away. His mom thinks that Kacchan will walk with him, but of course Kacchan doesn't. She doesn't know that they haven't walked home together since when they were four.

Except Izuku doesn't get a chance to go home. He won't for a good long while.

A shadow falls over him, and he looks up.

"You're supposed to be clever, aren't you, Midoriya-kun," the man says softly. His eyes are black.

"Walk with me," the man says.

Izuku sits there, frozen, for a moment. There is something strange about this man, in his plain hoodie and running pants. He looks like any other common pedestrian of Musutafu, but every inch of Izuku is begging for him to scream and run.

The man bends down to pick up a pebble. He tosses it up, up, up. And then he breathes out grey vapour, and the pebble falls back to the earth in little drops of molten rock.

The man does not seem to even notice the steam rising from the remains of the pebble, or the cloud of grey misting around his throat, burning his clothes but not his skin. His eyes are black and mean and blank and dull like death, and Izuku understands. He understands the threat very well.

He thinks about calling after Kacchan and the others, but bad, bad things will happen if he does, he knows. He should yell. He should scream for help, hope for the heroes to come save him. But this man, Izuku realises, is more than willing to use force to get what he wants. And what he wants right now is Izuku.

The other people in the park don't notice what's happening. Nobody glances their way.

He wonders what will happen if he jumps up now, sprints away to the group of conversing mothers there, or the teenagers by the bench who look scary but surely will help him. No, he already knows - the man will exhale his deadly breath, and. kill. _everyone_.

And then he'll probably find a way to take Izuku away, anyway.

Izuku's too clever for his own good, so he stands. When the mean-eyed man in the hoodie turns and walks away, he follows.

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 **A/N: Thanks for reading! Please review?**


	2. Two - cold case

**Author's Note: Here's another short chapter!**

 **Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own BnHA. (Sadly.)**

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 **Two – cold case**

She goes to the Bakugous, first. Little Katsuki opens the door, wearing his usual grumpy scowl, hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Why the hell would I know where that useless Deku is?" he complains. "It's not like we're friends anymore."

Inko stares down at him. She's known that Izukkun and Katsuki are going through a tough period – Izuku hasn't asked him over in months – but to hear that they aren't friends? Not anymore?

And… 'useless Deku'?

That's new.

"You didn't walk home together?" Inko asks, wringing her hands anxiously.

"Hell no," Katsuki says, and slams the door.

Mitsuki flings it open again moments later. "Apologise, brat," she orders.

Katsuki rolls his eyes. "Sorry, Auntie."

"No, no," Inko says reflexively, "it's alright. But do try not to swear, okay, Katsuki-kun?"

Katsuki does not answer. He looks grumpier than before.

"You coming in?" Mitsuki offers.

"Ah, no," Inko says. "It's just that Izuku's supposed to be back at five, it's five-thirty now, I got a little worried –"

Mitsuki looks concerned. "Your kid doesn't usually stay out late like that, does he?"

"I could be overreacting." Inko tries to smile at her. "You know I worry too much. And there was that one time with the abandoned cats, Izukkun was back _really_ late –"

Mitsuki pats her arm. "I'm sure he's fine."

Except he's not. Inko goes back home and waits in the living room, nibbling uselessly on a bar of chocolate, for an hour more before she gives in. She goes to the park, searches it high and low.

Izuku isn't there.

She hurries around the streets and back alleys, calling out for her son until her voice is hoarse and three separate people have asked if something's wrong. She tells them it's fine, just, kids, you know? Always wandering off to who-knows-where.

Maybe, she thinks, Izuku has found another box of starving kittens, or has gone to the bookstore and fallen asleep. Maybe there's really nothing to stress about.

She doesn't know who she's trying to convince.

 _You said you'd walk home with Katsuki,_ she thinks worriedly. _Oh, Izukkun. Why did you lie?_

Inko returns to the park and asks around. Takara-san who sits at the bench all day long, feeding the hungry sparrows, says that he saw Izuku leaving with a man in a grey hoodie. A friend, he assumed.

That's when she calls the police.

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There are police cars in front of the Midoriya house. He walks past them on his way home – barely spares a glance for them. No doubt Deku's fucked up big time, somehow, but it's none of his business.

They tell him at dinnertime. His dad says that Deku's missing, went and got himself kidnapped or some shit. Mitsuki tries to give him a hug.

Katsuki blows up her favourite teacup. Old hag should know better.

"Nobody'd want to take Deku," he roars over Mitsuki's shouts. "Deku's nothing! He'll be back! Betcha he just got lost like the _Deku_ he is."

(But even stupid Deku wouldn't get lost for an entire day, he knows.)

At school, they look at him with dumb expressions, like they think he's upset. Like they think he's _weak_.

He and Deku aren't even _close_! Why the hell should he care if Deku's gone?

He explodes a classmate's notebook after the first week and they stop with the freaky stares. The teachers, however – they're the worst. They bring flowers and everything, and they even schedule an assembly where they talk and look sad and everyone's supposed to stay silent for a full minute. 'In respect', they say, like they somehow know that Deku's dead. Bunch of bastards. Shitty adults never really cared about Deku anyway, just his smarts.

He remembers them ignoring Deku, dismissing him, because Deku's Quirkless and useless and always has been. And then there was the exam, the long one, where Deku got top scores, and suddenly Deku started being praised and fawned over and everything.

Two-faced, the lot of them.

Now, whenever he goes out, Deku's everywhere. They've stuck missing posters on every flat surface, put his face on TV – a bunch of policemen promise they'll find him, but Katsuki knows they won't. Deku'll find his way back before then, because Deku's a tough bastard. Always has been.

He stuffs the red ball, the one they played with on the day Deku vanished, in the back of his closet. Fatty and Freaky-Fingers ask about it, and he snarls back with something unimportant. Eventually he tells them he blew it up. They believe him.

He gets taken to the police station after a while, when they find out he was there That Day. They ask him questions like _did he see anyone suspicious, were he and Deku friends…_

(He tells them a resolute no, for the latter.)

They look at him pityingly, too. Assuming bastards.

Then they tell him that the kidnapper, a tall man in a ratty hoodie, took Deku right after Katsuki and his friends left him lying in the dirt.

Sometimes, he wonders – what if he had stayed? For just a minute or two more, or maybe several. Maybe that would've been enough. Maybe Deku would still be annoying Katsuki all the time, and Auntie wouldn't be looking more and more pale each day. Fatty and Freaky-Fingers would stop looking so guilty and there would be no more dumb flowers on Deku's school desk, because Deku would still be there and he'd need the space for his dumb notebooks.

Sometimes his parents say stupid things like _you know, Katsuki, you can't keep believing that Izuku's coming back,_ or, _the police are thinking of declaring it a cold case…_

(Never when Auntie Inko's in the house, of course.)

He always spits out something loud and angry. Something like, "Deku's too useless to be dead!", which doesn't even make sense, but whatever. It always shuts them up pretty quickly, and they look away, and Katsuki stomps up to his room.

Maybe he digs out the shitty red ball sometimes and thinks about hurling it into a river. But he never does. He throws the ball back into the closet, blows something up, and goes to bed early.

 _You didn't walk home together?_ It rings in his ears. He remembers Auntie looking so surprised, when he told her no.

"Shitty Deku," he growls to himself.

His classmates try not to look at him weirdly.

His head feels too quiet nowadays. It's like, without Deku, his thoughts are running in circles and escaping out of his ears. He talks louder to fill up the silence, makes bigger and better explosions and smirks as people look at him in amazement. _This one'll be great one day,_ they whisper.

But no matter what he shouts, no matter what he blows up, nobody actually listens to him. Not the hag, not his old man, not Fatty or Freaky-Fingers, not even kind Auntie Inko. Deku was the only one who listened, really. But of course, he's gone now.

Without Deku, Katsuki is not real, not to anyone - he's only That Loud Brat, or Future Hero Bakugou, or The Boy Who Made Hana Cry, Did You Hear? And of course, he's The One with the Explosion Quirk.

It all comes back to his Quirk. Regrets are not a new thing for him, even at the age of seven, but what he regrets most is, perhaps, that his amazing, awesome Quirk was no use That Day because Katsuki _wasn't there_. Heroes save people, but he _wasn't there_ to save Deku. He should have been, because useless Deku couldn't save himself and _got fucking kidnapped._

What use is an amazing Quirk if you aren't there when it's needed?

(Heroes are heroes because they're _there_ for people.

Katsuki is not a hero.)

Mostly he just wants to forget. Deku doesn't matter now because Deku's not here. But his parents are persistent. They keep bringing Deku up when Katsuki just doesn't want to think about him.

Useless extras.

They keep asking Katsuki, too gently, if he really believes that Deku will come back.

He snaps, _yeah, duh_ , every time.

It takes a year – of quietness in the classroom when they do their worksheets (because there's no more Deku to annoy everyone with his endless muttering), of Auntie putting on weight and drowning herself in her job (because Deku's still gone), of posters gradually being taken down from walls and storefronts (because everyone's giving up hope) – for his answer to change to silence.

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Midoriya Izuku disappears with a mysterious man on a sunny June day. There are no clues and no leads. The police tear their hair out trying to find anything, _anything_ , that might bring him back to his mother, but all they dig up are dead ends.

It's as if he literally vanished into thin air. But who knows, with the Quirks popping up these days?

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 **A/N: I should really go to sleep now... Also this will probably be the last we see of Bakugou for a while haha**


	3. Three - project 022

**Author's Note: And here's a double update, because inspiration struck.**

 **Soooo... this is chapter 3. I struggled a bit with this one, specifically with portraying the big bads. I'd really appreciate it if you guys tell me what you think! Criticism is always welcome! Improving my writing is, like, one of my life goals, so please don't hesitate in telling me your honest opinion.**

 **On another note - 5 reviews, guys! 50 followers and 26 favourites! Thank you so much! And to animalsarepeopletoo, whose pm feature is turned off, thanks for your kind words! I was pretty worried I'd get Bakugou's character wrong, and it's good to know that you liked what I wrote.**

 **Disclaimer: Don't own, probably never will. 'Probably', because a girl can dream...**

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 **Three - project 022**

Izuku remembers the first Quirk specialist they went to.

The doctor was a balding man, with a pot belly and small, round glasses. He sat them down in his office and broke the news to them in a blunt but soft tone.

There was nothing _wrong_ with Izuku, the doctor told them. He didn't have the toe joint, so it was entirely possible that Izuku had a Quirk and just wasn't showing it yet. Still, the chances of him developing a Quirk, as time passed by, decreased greatly, said Dr. Tsubasa.

Izuku was five, at the time. With every day that came and went, those odds dropped more and more.

(Sometimes the uncertainty is the worst. He'd rather have a clear diagnosis than one that's almost mocking him, giving him false hope. He'd rather know for sure what his future will be like, instead of balancing on a thin thread, wishing that what everyone else thinks is wrong.

He's _not_ Quirkless. He's _not_.)

Izuku remembers his mother crying when they got home. There were other specialists after that, other clinics and pitying doctors who all said the same thing: that there was nothing they could do. Either Izuku was Quirkless, or his Quirk wasn't showing yet, or it was one of those subtle ones, the type that nobody can tell exist.

An invisible Quirk is better than nothing at all, he knows. But something like Kacchan's would be far more useful, especially in heroics. And right now – it would be real useful right now. Izuku wonders how Kacchan's explosions will fare against this man, his kidnapper. It'll probably change nothing, because the man's breath is _scary_ , but Kacchan's Quirk would _do_ something, at least. Meanwhile, Izuku is stuck following along, struck silent, for once not muttering absentmindedly.

He's too terrified to even _think_ properly.

Izuku wonders, sickly, how his mother will react when she realises he's missing. Or maybe they'll find his body before then. Who knows? Maybe this man is a killer, a murderer, and he will make Izuku burn and scream, his skin melting with poisonous vapour, before he finally dies.

They leave the park. There is a cold hand on his arm. The man's skin is rough and dry, his fingers calloused. Izuku has to fight the urge to rip himself away.

Takara-san, the one who likes feeding the birds, lifts his head and smiles at them kindly, obliviously. No doubt he thinks Izuku and the man know each other.

They make a turn once they're out on the streets, and suddenly the man's grip tightens, and he's being pulled into an alleyway. Izuku's eyes catch on a surveillance camera in the corner, but it has the look of one that's been abandoned for too long, rusted and broken from age.

He wonders if there will be anything left for the police, the heroes, to find.

He didn't know that it could be this easy to disappear in Musutafu.

The man in the hoodie lets go of his arm, but Izuku cannot bring himself to run, stiff with fear and nerves. The man glances down at him disdainfully, reaching into his pocket to pull out a phone.

It is plain and black, with no visible branding. The man dials a number.

"Akagiri," he greets, his voice low and rough. "Sakuracho St., second alley."

Izuku strains his ears; there is no reply. But he sees, out of the corner of his eye, red.

A portal opens, spiralling into existence. It is the colour of blood, of Kacchan's scarlet eyes. The man pushes Izuku in roughly, and he is falling, spinning into nowhere, into nothingness –

Izuku hits the floor face-first.

He scrambles up. He is in a room with purple carpeting, dim yellow lights, and a broad window overlooking the skyline of an unfamiliar city. It looks almost like an office, except there is no desk or chair. Nothing except a lonely-looking potted plant by the door.

There is a new person in the corner of the room – Izuku can't tell if they're male or female, because their body is made of curling mist.

The man in the hoodie steps through the portal and into the room behind him, as casually as if he's done it a thousand times before. "Stand straight, boy," he says.

It's a hypocritical order, as the man himself is slouching. Izuku trembles, though, and tries to straighten his back and square his shoulders, like Kacchan always does.

"I am Kumo," the hoodie man says.

"And I am Akagiri," introduces the person in the corner of the room, whose voice is too low to be a woman's.

His body, made of malevolent red mist, is the same colour as the portal that brought them here. His eyes glow yellow and he wears a black suit with a red bowtie.

"We are the Triumvirate," Kumo says, "your new bosses."

He pulls down his hood, revealing neat black hair and tanned skin. There are deep bags under his dull eyes.

Akagiri, who has no mouth, nonetheless seems to smile at Izuku. "A triumvirate, of course, has three members. Our colleague is currently busy, but he congratulates you on your decision to join us in our mission to rebuild this world."

There are many things Izuku should say to that, but he cannot force out a word.

Kumo leers down at his meek silence. "Scared, are you, boy?"

"N-no," Izuku squeaks out.

"You work for us, now," says Akagiri calmly. His voice is slow and thick like overly-sweet honey. "Please remember that, Midoriya-kun. I know this is an uncomfortable situation, but do not be afraid. Obey us and you will not be harmed."

Kumo breathes out a puff of grey that only damages his clothes further, the scent of scorched fabric filling the air. It is a warning.

Disobeying, obviously, is not a viable option.

Akagiri spreads his arms, red mist wisping around his impeccably ironed sleeves. "We are always looking for new employees," he says. "And our other colleague, Hiseki – he is a man with great dreams for our organisation, the Order of the Triumvirate. He proposed an interesting plan: Project 022, where we take in underappreciated, neglected children with great potential and induct them into our Order."

"I'll admit, Midoriya Izuku, that I am still skeptical," says Kumo. He peers down at Izuku with a predatory stare. "Only time will tell of your usefulness, I suppose."

"Do you know why we chose _you_ , Midoriya-kun?" Akagiri asks. "Your IQ test results. You are the highest scoring living person in Japan, boy. And yet the world dismisses you because you are Quirkless."

Izuku's bottom lip quivers. "I'm not Quirkless."

"It doesn't matter what you believe." Akagiri sounds almost sympathetic. "You might not have the toe joint, but once you reach seven years of age, your chances of manifesting a Quirk drops down to one in three hundred odds."

Izuku is almost seven.

"The world will hate you for it – the statistics do not lie. Most Quirkless people never get a job, did you know? Fifty percent are dead before their thirtieth birthdays, by suicide and hate crimes and many other things."

"You should be thanking us," Kumo says. "We're giving you a chance to do something with your life and intellect, when the rest of the universe doesn't care."

"I wanna go home," Izuku chokes out. "I want my mom!"

He tries not to look at them, their burning pity and sugared words. He stares at the potted plant by the door with wet eyes.

"I'm afraid you won't be seeing her again, Midoriya-kun," Akagiri says gently. He walks closer and lays an incorporeal, barely-there hand on Izuku's shaking shoulder.

"Do not worry – she will remain unharmed for as long as you do what we say."

That is threat, he knows.

"Don't t-touch her," Izuku says.

"An assertive child, aren't you?" Akagiri laughs, his hand dropping from Izuku's shoulder. "Be assured, Midoriya. Your mother will come to no harm _as long as you obey_."

Things are going too fast for him to process properly. There are hiccups building in his chest, but he can't bring himself to sob.

Less than fifteen minutes ago, he was glaring at Katsuki with trembling fists. Now he faces a different kind of cruelty, one that will not hesitate to slit his throat should he prove to be a bad investment, Izuku knows.

An investment. That is all he is, Izuku thinks woodenly. He and whoever else who is taken for this 'Project 022'.

He was so proud of his exam results. It was something that proved he wasn't useless. It was something _he_ did, that made his mom happy and got everyone else to back off for a while. But if only he'd scored lowly – he wouldn't be here now.

"You will begin training tomorrow," Akagiri announces. "Should you work hard, you will be rewarded. We'll see how your lessons go, and in time you will participate in operations and prove your worth."

"You're the first subject of Project 022," says Kumo. "Be proud."

He smiles mockingly, his lips thin and pale, but it doesn't reach his eyes. It seems as if nothing does.

The dim lighting of the room makes his blank gaze flash. Izuku shudders.

"In time you will understand our vision," Akagiri says, red mist curling around the white collar of his shirt.

Once again, Akagiri seems to smile.

"There will be other children coming soon. I hope you all get along."

Izuku wants to say, _I don't know your vision_ , or _How many others are you taking?_ But he knows he will cry if he opens his mouth, so he doesn't.

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He stays in a room that has white walls and a white tiled floor and bright, white lights. It is a small room, with no windows or desks or chairs, just two military-style bunk beds, placed against opposing walls. That makes four beds total, and Izuku sleeps on a lower bunk, which has a hard mattress and white sheets and a thin white pillow.

Everything in the bathroom is white as well. What is not white is gleaming steel, like the toilet and the sink and the showerhead.

He gets sick of the white in less than a day. He misses his bedroom, his colourful posters and hero merch and the notebooks on his shelves.

The _notebooks_. Izuku's worked for nearly a year on them, ever since he learned to write. Months of effort, three notebooks, pages upon pages of careful analysis on Quirks – all gone because he'll never see his home again.

Izuku doesn't dare ask for new pens or notebooks or anything from the Triumvirate people, his captors. It's not like he'll be using them now. There's no one he can talk to, anyway. He was brought to his new bedroom by one of Akagiri's portals, and he hasn't heard anything from him or Kumo since then.

There is a small window in his door, and when he jumps up high, he can see that there are two guards outside his room, wearing navy uniforms and carrying sleek guns. There is an unfamiliar insignia on the sleeves of their jackets – a white triskelion in a circle of deep purple. The symbol of this 'Order of the Triumvirate', maybe.

There are cameras in his room. Two of them, looking shiny and new and top-of-the-line. They stare down at Izuku with beatle eyes, red lights flashing like a warning – _try anything funny and you won't like the consequences._

Not that there's anything he can try. There is nothing in the room except the beds, and all Izuku has on him are the clothes on his back.

Eventually he lies down on his new, uncomfortable mattress. It is adult-sized, like his captors anticipate him staying here for many, many years.

He doesn't get much sleep that night.

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 **A/N: We meet the villains! Who are they? Are they related to the League of Villains? Why is Akagiri so similar to Kurogiri? In fact, why does Kumo seem similar to Shigaraki as well? Who the hell are the Order of the Triumvirate? What is their 'vision'? Who is Hiseki? What exactly is Project 022 and why is that its name? Will Izuku get a Quirk? Who will occupy the other three beds of Izuku's room?**

 **(Well, that last one is pretty obvious if you've read the character tags.)**

 **Thanks for reading! Reviews mean the world to me :D**


	4. Four - nothing here is kind

**A/N: Chapter 4's arrived, and it's pretty long! You know, this and chapter 3 were originally one chapter, but I thought it might be better if I separated them. So... here it is.**

 **Disclaimer: I have zero claim to BnHA. It's a cool series and Horikoshi is a genius, I don't own it. This was written for entertainment purposes only.**

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 **Four – nothing here is kind**

Izuku is woken in the morning by the sound of the door being flung open. He blinks open heavy eyes just in time to witness a pink-haired girl around his age being pushed into the room, the door closing shut behind her.

The girl picks herself up and slams herself against the metal door, kicking and beating at it uselessly. "Let me out!" she roars shrilly. "Let – _me_ – _OUT_!"

She's not crying. Her eyes are yellow with strange pupils, and she glares at the door fiercely, to no avail. Outside, the guards ignore her.

Izuku's first impression of Hatsume Mei is that she is a hurricane.

She turns and her odd eyes zero in on Izuku. " _You_ ," she says. "Were you kidnapped, too?"

"Y-yeah," Izuku says.

That's all he gets out before the girl continues, speaking with a slight lisp, "That's great! Well, not great, obviously, I just mean – I'm Hatsume Mei. They took me from my aunt's shop – she does auto repair work. How long've you been here? Where'd they pick you up from?"

"A day. Um, I was at the park –"

"That Kumo guy came, right? He's _soooo_ creepy. When Auntie comes she's gonna kick his butt. But until then, we gotta work on an escape plan. Can't let Auntie do all the work, yeah?"

Mei's stubborn optimism is contagious, and Izuku finds himself smiling back.

Something like an hour passes – he really wishes he has a watch – before somebody knocks on their door politely to give them breakfast. Their meals, white rice with veggies and soup and a paper cup of water, are served on plain plastic trays. Everything is taken away in what he guesses are an exact twenty minutes, even as Mei complains that she hasn't finished her miso yet.

'Training' does indeed start that day, like Akagiri said. The guards open the door again sometime later and lead them out. The hallways have white walls and white tiles, too, giving the whole place the look of a normal office building.

They are taken to what looks like a gym. There, they meet a woman who wears a yellow blouse, black skirt, and high heels, who has short brown hair and oval glasses.

Her name is Taya. She has some kind of analysis Quirk, Izuku thinks. She makes them take off their shirts and spends a few minutes just carefully examining their bodies with a nearly obsessive gaze. It makes him squirm, but he remembers Kumo's lazy reprimand and doesn't slouch.

"Acceptable," Taya declares after poking at the muscles of his legs. It's ticklish.

Izuku is a good runner, he supposes. He has to be, with all the times the bullies at school chase him.

"Too pale," Taya critiques while she pinches Mei's cheek. "Do you spend all your time in front of a computer screen, girl? No, let me guess, the TV?" She tuts, almost like a disapproving aunt.

She tells them to run three laps around the room. Except Mei can't keep up, and when Izuku starts slowing down to keep pace with her, Taya tells him to leave her behind.

There is an awkward stretch of time after he finishes, as Izuku stands nervously next to the woman, watching Mei dragging herself determinedly through the last lap.

"Oh, boy," Taya sighs, looking disheartened.

She will be their primary physical instructor for the next few years, she says after Mei finishes. She expects them to work hard, or there will be _consequences_.

Taya makes them do sit-ups and jump roping and more running that day – tiring but not too bad. Almost like P.E. class. There are push-ups; neither Izuku or Mei can do a single one.

Then there is an hour which Taya uses to teach them how to punch. They stand in front of a punching bag and Taya shows them the basic form, how to position their wrists, how to throw their weight into a hit. For a woman of her slim figure, she is surprisingly strong. Taya punches, and the whole bag swings back.

It is a strange sight, as Taya is wearing heels and makeup and a skirt.

Izuku and Mei each take a different punching bag, and they throw hits as Taya counts, "One – two – one – two – one – two – one – two…"

He punches hard but clumsily, feeling his knuckles going numb and knowing that they will bruise later, but not daring to stop. Mei, on the other hand, does not seem to be taking Taya seriously. She moves unenthusiastically, barely working at all.

Izuku steals glances at Taya's face, which looks more and more unimpressed the longer she watches Mei.

When they stop for a water break, the first thing Taya does is slap Mei across the face. He isn't even surprised. The smacking sound seems to ring in his ears as Mei's head snaps back, her hand coming up to cradle her cheek.

"Lesson one," Taya says, voice now cold. "When I tell you to do something, you do it with one hundred percent effort. And when I talk about consequences, I mean it."

Mei goes without lunch that day. Her tray is still given to her, but it is mockingly empty. Izuku avoids her gaze as he eats his own meal.

He gives her the two rolls he slipped into his sleeve later, turning away from the cameras in their room at an angle where he is mostly sure his actions will not be noticed. Mei smiles at him gratefully in a wavering way. She kneels down in the guise of tying her shoelaces, ducking her head so that her long hair hides the way her cheeks – one still horribly black and purple – puff out as she gulps down the food quickly.

There is more 'training' in the afternoon, and afterwards they are given the evening to themselves. They shower and sit on their beds, Mei taking the one opposite Izuku's, and they talk quietly about unimportant things.

There is no more conversation about escaping, or badmouthing Taya or Kumo or the rest of their captors. Izuku thinks that even Mei is a little afraid now, that someone will hear and bad things will happen.

Three more children join them the next day, in the middle of another afternoon with Taya. Shinsou Hitoshi and Kaminari Denki, both boys their age, and Takahe Akayo, who is two years older. Hitoshi is dragged into the gym first by a guard and has wild purple hair and deep bags beneath his eyes, ones darker than Kumo's. He is sullen and rarely talks. Then comes Denki, who is blond (with a black streak) and scared, but he grins weakly at Izuku and it is wide and bright.

Akayo has bat ears and wings. They aren't allowed to talk while they 'train', but she tells them her name when lessons for the day finish and they are walking through the hallways together, led by yet another pair of armed, silent guards.

Hitoshi and Denki are pushed into Mei and Izuku's room, solving the mystery of who will be occupying the last two beds. Akayo, however, is led to another room, where she stays alone for the night, like Izuku did on his first day.

There are others who come. They join in twos and threes, most days. Sometimes they arrive in training, and other times Izuku and his roommates – teammates, Taya calls them. If they're in the same room, they're teammates – peek out the window in their door to witness another boy or girl shouting as they are thrown into their rooms – their cells.

Most are Japanese children. Then there are those who speak English or Chinese or Korean or Malay or Spanish or all sorts of other languages. The Order of the Triumvirate, Izuku realises with sickening clarity, is not a weak organisation. They must be influential, to be able to capture children from across the world.

"Smuggling rings," Mei suggests one night, when the lights are out, and they are curled up in their beds, listening to the sounds of each other's breathing.

"They must have people who have access to the Quirk registries," Izuku whispers quietly back. "Or… something. Most of us here have useful Quirks." Not me, he doesn't say. "Quirk therapists, specialists, doctors, government officials…"

"Shut up," Hitoshi mutters. "M'trying to sleep."

"You stay awake for hours, anyway," Mei replies. Denki, who has buried his head beneath his pillow, snorts out an agreement.

By the time the arrivals trickle to a stop, there are over forty children at the training hall each day. Izuku knows all their names. There is Hana, who mouths rude words at the guards' backs; Youichi, who gets extra food because of his Quirk and shares it with the younger children; Mickey, who can't speak a proper sentence of Japanese but is trying very hard to learn; Kenji, who uses his Quirk to make mosquitoes sting the Triumvirate people. (He tries more subtly after a guard finds out and breaks his arm.) There are little Emi and Mari, who can fly and make things heavier respectively, and many, many others.

More trainers come, and they are split into separate groups and separate training halls. Kenji tells him about his instructor, Howler, and how he sends his dogs chasing after them if they move too slowly. He hears of how Emi cries one day when one of the hounds snaps its jaws around her calf, and how the infirmary is told to strap her down and not give her anesthesia as they set the broken bones and stitch her skin up.

Izuku's team stays together under Taya, like all the other teams stay together. In a way, he is glad for her. She is not kind – nothing here is kind – but at least she is fair. She gives them breaks and tells Denki to take two days off after he catches the flu during swimming lessons. She doesn't make them practice their aim by throwing knives at each other or beat them until they learn like Youichi's instructor does. She isn't unnecessarily harsh.

If they are good, she will talk to them. About how they are in the Kantō region (in Tokyo, maybe?) and about everyday news – the local elections, how the weather is getting bad lately, how the plane that crashed near Hokkaido has been found. About politics and her associates and, sometimes, what the Order really does.

In moments when those of different teams can meets, little snatches of time where they can talk quickly, the others tell him about the one trainer who breaks Akitashi's jaw, how Shun disappears one day after he breaks down during training, and how Michizane, the oldest of them at fourteen, is found dead in the bathroom one morning, having hung himself. They are not called by those names in front of the Triumvirate people, of course, as the guards and trainers will hit them if they do. They call each other by the new names. The ones that sound like – like villain titles. Only in the privacy of their rooms, where they are sure no one will bother to discipline them, do they refer to each other by their original ones.

Taya chooses uncomplicated names for them. (He's glad – Kenji's is a long, complex English word that nobody can pronounce, and they all hate it.) Denki is 'Flare'. Hitoshi is called 'Proxy'. Mei is 'Q', because apparently Taya is a James Bond fan.

Izuku himself is 'Kingpin'. It's a weird name, and he asks Taya about it one day while she seems to be in a good mood.

"You were each picked for different reasons," she says. "Flare and Proxy for their Quirks, Q for her mind and her talent with technology, and you purely for your intellect. I frankly don't understand what the Triumvirate wants to do with you children, and I don't care." She shrugs. "I just follow orders."

Taya is usually talkative, but she is rarely this honest. Izuku catches the others – his teammates, he reminds himself – leaning in so they can hear better.

"Your names all have to do with what your role will be in this organisation," Taya says to him. "I'm guessing Q will be in charge of tech and support…"

Mei did, after all, hack into government files at the tender age of six. The Order took notice of her because of that, Mei told them. And her IQ results were high as well – not even close to Izuku's, but still genius-range.

"…Flare and Proxy will be sent into the field most often. You might be as well, but your selling point is your mind. You'll be in charge of operations, of planning and strategy. Every army needs a good general. You'll be groomed to be the leader of this team, and if you work hard, you'll get to be high up in the ranks, and you'll be near irreplaceable."

Irreplaceable. That's what Izuku wants, _needs_ to be. It lowers his chances of being vanished like Shun was, gives him leverage, and buys him time to escape. He's _sure_ he can come up with something – he's smart, he knows that, everyone tells him that. It might take years, it might take decades, but he'll find a way out of this Order of the Triumvirate, and he'll take the other kids with him.

"I'll confess, I've grown fond of you." Taya gives him one of her rare, thin smiles. "Become essential to this organisation, prove yourself a good investment, and hopefully you won't die. _That's_ why your name is Kingpin."

Izuku nods, and they get back to work.

They will never be a combat-oriented team, not like some of the other groups. That's alright. Combat isn't everything to crime, anyway, Izuku is learning – he loves heroes, he does, but with every lecturing talk that Taya has with them, it becomes more and more clear that the _real_ villains are those that stay low and work behind the scenes, not the flashy criminals that many pro heroes chase.

Maybe, when he gets out of this place, he will become a hero that deals with these sorts of serious crime. Or maybe he'll join the police.

Taya talks about the police force in negative tones – this detective ruined that operation, the insider they had in that precinct turned out to be a spy on _them_ , this villain and that criminal were arrested, what a pity, they were pretty decent guys. Izuku didn't understand, at first, how any villain can be described as 'decent', but he thinks he does now. Taya is a criminal, too, after all, and she's nice to him. And they are all being trained to be villains – how many other criminals were forced into their positions? How many others are good people?

Sadako confesses to him, one day, that she is afraid of forgetting her name. They are walking in the hallways. There is no one accompanying them, because they all know the way from the training halls to their rooms by now, and because the Triumvirate people seem sure that none of them will try anything anymore, not after they killed a whole team for trying to dig a hole through a wall and jump out of the building.

(Taya says that they killed that group's families, too. All of them, their throats slit in the middle of an unsuspecting night.)

Sadako says in a hushed tone, "Mari's already starting to forget hers, I think. I don't think she remembers Emi is her sister."

Izuku wavers, because this is something Kacchan has always said was useless – but he knows it isn't, so he says, "I have an eidetic memory."

"What's that?"

"It means I'll never forget _anything_ ," Izuku replies. He smiles hesitatingly up at Sadako, who has unnaturally long limbs and is two heads taller. "…so you don't have to be scared of forgetting your name. I'll remember for you."

He rarely stutters now. Taya says that big boys don't stutter.

Sadako looks relieved. He makes her swear not to tell anyone. Word still gets around, though, because one day Mickey comes up to him and mutters in broken Japanese, "My mom is Angelica. She's a math teacher. And my brother's called Jo."

Hana says, "My family lives in Miyagi. My dad's phone number is 0229-239506."

"I got bullied for my Quirk," Hitoshi says quietly. "Everyone said that Brainwash was a villain's ability. I guess they were right."

Izuku doesn't know what to say to that. That night, they all pile into Hitoshi's bed, he and Mei and Denki, sprawling on the thin mattress in a tangle of limbs while Hitoshi complains.

They sleep well.

"I was in an orphanage," Hana tells him. "I got a big brother, Yuri, but he was adopted so we haven't met in a real long time."

"I was supposed to go to a concert before they took me," Youichi, who is eleven, says. "D'you like rock music? I do. And I've got two sisters, they're in college. My best friend is Korean, his name's Sunghyon and he hates kimchi."

"I was rescued by Ingenium once," Kenji reminisces. "He was super cool, like, _pow!_ , and the robber went down. He said I was really brave."

"I have three siblings," Denki says. "Two sisters and a big brother: Kyoko, Ryuuha, and Ryoma. We have the same hair. We lived with our uncle, he's an electrician."

"Mom died because of a villain," Mei confesses. "Her name was Hatsume Rei, and I don't have a dad 'cause he left when I was small. My aunt's really cool, but I miss Mom a lot."

Emi says, "Mari's my little sister."

Mari says, "Emi's my big sister."

"I want to be a hero," Akayo whispers.

They are important things, things that the others want to remember, but are afraid of forgetting. So, Izuku remembers for them.

And every morning, when he goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth, he stares into the mirror and tells himself, _Your name is Midoriya Izuku. Your mom is Inko and you once had a friend called Bakugou Katsuki. You like katsudon. You're going to escape one day and become a hero like All Might._

It is almost cruel that he can vividly remember his mother's long green hair, the way she hugged him when he cried, the smile she always got when she cooked. They are important things, things that he cannot have anymore, things that he cannot forget, and as the days pass by he isn't sure if that's a good thing or not.

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

 **A/N: And here we get a glimpse into Izuku's life in captivity, and the beginnings of his indoctrination. It's subtle, I'll give 'em that, and I love Taya (my baby!) but she's not a good person. Yes, she is relatively kind to Izuku and the others, but she is stealthily getting them used to the environment they live in now and getting them around to a criminal's way of thinking. Don't worry though, Izuku will never become one of those brainwashed, evil, brutal characters you sometimes see in other fics. I love him too much for that ;)**

 **Indoctrination is not good, guys! This is a real problem in the real world which I admittedly don't know much about, which is why the methods Taya and the Order are using might seem incorrect or ineffective to those experts out there. Sorry, eheheheh...**

 **We also see how Taya is encouraging Izuku to work hard and become useful - 'irreplaceable' is the word Izuku uses. It's a flawed line of thinking, cuz if Izuku becomes truly irreplaceable, the Order of the Triumvirate will hunt him down if he escapes and kill him if there's no way they can get him back. But our Izuku is still a kid despite his high intellect, and he's allowed to make mistakes.**

 **On another matter: I know there are a lot of people out there who hate OCs, which... I can understand. I'll try not to use too many of them, but OCs are important for this fic. Most of them will be other subjects of Project 022, villains, and members of the Order of the Triumvirate, and I put a lot of thought and time into each one, so please try to put up with them! Some of them you'll probably never see again, some will surface later in this fic, and some, like Taya, Akagiri, and Kumo, will show up a lot. I understand if my OCs put off a lot of people, so I'll try not to make _too_ many, but they are my babies so please give them a chance...!**

 **Don't hesitate to give feedback, even if it's for something like grammar or punctuation! Tell me what you think so far about my OCs, the Order, how I'm portraying Izuku's time in captivity so far, the names I gave Hitoshi, Denki, Mei and Izuku, etc... Criticism is always welcome!**

 **I've also decided: my other BnHA fic, Chrysalism, will be taken down for now as I concentrate on this fic. I have a lot of ideas, but I write pretty slowly and I've found that writing Chrysalism and focusing on Hiraeth at the same time is pretty hard. So, in the interest of saving time and effort, Chrysalism will be deleted. For now. It'll be back... I'm sorry for those who liked it, though!**

 **See ya!**

 **\- wondersing**


	5. Five - risky

**A/N: I'm back... sorry if you thought I was dead...**

 **Disclaimer: Don't own.**

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

 **Five – risky**

The lift is broken.

He can't understand how. Shouldn't a criminal organisation have better building maintenance?

Izuku takes the stairs. It's slow going, as he has to stop every flight or so to wait for Mei to hack each surveillance camera one by one. She's not supposed to do that – she's not supposed to _be able_ to do that. And if anyone finds out, well… the consequences won't be pretty.

But Mei has always been good at being rebellious, and she's been finding ways past the restrictions the Order has set in her laptop since she first got it half a year ago. It took two years of good behavior and obedience to persuade Taya to buy her one. They all knew how dangerous Mei could be with a computer of her own.

Mei is certainly skilled enough to loop camera feeds. That was one of the first things the Order taught her, Izuku thinks. It's useful, especially as they now have more freedom in sneaking around the building than ever before.

It takes a full thirty minutes for him to make his way up to the top floor, Mei's instructions on when and where he can move transmitting into his stolen earpiece. The building's cameras scan past him, unaware of his quiet steps.

The door to the open roof is one of the few in the building that doesn't require a handprint scan or, at the very least, a keycard. It's actually closed with a simple lock. Izuku twists a bobby pin into the keyhole and wiggles it around until the door opens with a soft click. He pushes his way outside carefully, tucking the pin back into one of the many pockets of his baggy uniform.

Kenji is on the roof, just as Emi said. The older boy is leaning on the metal fence that separates him from an early death, staring out at the city pensively.

Minato Ward in Tokyo is beautiful at night. The Order of the Triumvirate's headquarters is a normal-looking office building located on the outskirts of the city, but Izuku can still see far-away Tokyo Tower if he squints, and he can catch glimpses of normal life in the pedestrians that hurry around on the streets down below. The lights of the city are dizzying, blurring before his eyes.

"Kenji," Izuku calls out, voice nearly lost in the gushing wind. "What are you doing up here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" Kenji shoots back, but he steps away from the fence (and the edge of the roof), and Izuku is relieved.

"Emi says you've been here for two hours," he says. "She's worried."

Kenji has always had a soft spot for the girl, the youngest of his team. He had become especially protective after the incident with their trainer's dogs. Izuku remembers the pale, angry look on Kenji's face as they waited for Emi to be released from the infirmary. His other teammates had been scared into compliance after the event, but not Kenji.

The Rottweiler that bit her eventually suffered the deadly bite of some insect or another and died a few days later. Everyone knew Kenji was the culprit, but he was never punished. Izuku remembers Howler's eyes gleaming with satisfaction, even though he had lost one of his prized hounds. The frigid man had taught Kenji cruelty, and he had taught it well.

Kenji furrows his brows now, an expression far too severe for the face of a twelve-year-old.

"You should come down and get some sleep," Izuku tells him quietly.

Kenji makes an attempt at looking annoyed. "I told her not to tell you."

"Don't be mad at her."

"I'm not," Kenji sighs.

Izuku closes the door and sits down against it. Kenji slumps down next to him.

"I wasn't going to jump, if that's what you were thinking," he says.

"I know," Izuku replies. "Was today your first operation?"

"Third."

'Operation'. Such a clinical-sounding word.

It was the word Akagiri used, so it's what Izuku and the other kids call the little 'jobs' the Order has them do. Sometimes they are nothing special, like when Mei helps out in the labs, or when Izuku is told to solve a logistics problem or analyse a pro hero's Quirk. But oftentimes Hitoshi will be called to an interrogation room and handed a list of questions to ask a prisoner, or Denki will be led out of headquarters and told to overload an unfamiliar building's power system.

Those are the ones everybody dreads. You never know what you'll be made to do.

"I killed a man today," Kenji says.

Izuku tenses. "W-what?"

"I mean, he's not dead yet," Kenji says morosely. "I think he's still unconscious. But he'll die soon."

"What happened?" Izuku probes warily.

"They collected an entire box of giant hornets," Kenji explains. "Howler drove me near this guy's house and rang the doorbell. When he walked out, I told the hornets to sting him."

Izuku thumps the back of his head against the door absently, stunned.

This is the first time any of them has been made to actually _kill_ someone.

"You're such a busybody, you know," Kenji complains quietly. "You're always poking around, sticking your nose into other people's business. I told myself I wasn't gonna tell anyone…"

"I won't tell," Izuku promises.

"You'd better not," Kenji warns. A hornet creeps out from the collar of his shirt. It flies onto Kenji's palm, and he holds it up to Izuku's face. "One sting won't kill you, but it'll be very painful."

Izuku laughs. Kenji won't do that. He's more likely to send mosquitos or ants after him, harmless but annoying things.

"How did you get up here?" Izuku asks, changing the subject.

Kenji finally smiles, a small curve of his lips. "Did you know, there's been a lot of bugs in the building lately," he says.

Izuku giggles. "Really?"

"I told the security guys I found out how to get the insects to leave. But they have to let me out onto the roof once a day."

"Risky," Izuku says. Kenji could have just as easily been dragged to Howler and whipped for his disrespect.

Kenji shrugs. "The guys on night shift are always pretty chill."

"Too tired to get angry," Izuku agrees.

They look up at the night sky in silence.

Izuku misses Musutafu. The stars were clearer from there. Here, in Tokyo, pollution wisps in the air.

"Are you two coming down or not?" Mei asks after a while, voice tinny in Izuku's earpiece.

"Coming, coming," Izuku hurries to placate her.

In the end, Kenji goes down first, and Izuku waits before setting out on another half-hour trek down the stairs. It's not like Kenji can accompany him, after all, and not be seen coming down as Mei tiredly hacks into the building's cameras and loops their feeds. The people manning the CCTV control room would definitely be suspicious.

"Finally," Mei mutters when he slips back into their room – 'dorm' would be a better word for it, he thinks – at two in the morning.

Her eyes are bloodshot from staring at her computer screen for so long, and her fingers are cramped from rapid typing. "Did you have to take so long?"

"S-sorry," Izuku mumbles sheepishly.

Hitoshi sits up abruptly on his bed, making both of them jump and Mei slam her laptop shut.

"Oh my god," he says, fluffy hair ridiculously messy. The ever-present bags under his eyes are darker than usual. "Both of you shut the fuck up and go to sleep."

"You're awake," Izuku splutters.

"I'm always awake," Hitoshi snaps. " _Go to sleep_."

"And close the lights before I short them out," Denki moans, blanket covering his head. "It'll be on purpose this time."

Mei turns off the lights. Hitoshi mutters a prayer for dumbass friends.

Izuku goes to bed. He sleeps.

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

They have uniforms. Those came in the third month, tossed to them by their trainers. They are plain, navy blue jumpsuits. On one sleeve is the symbol of the Order, white triskelion and purple circle and all. There is no insignia on the other sleeve – that space is left blank for their armbands.

Izuku's team was given green armbands – "For Kingpin's hair," Taya told them amusedly – but the other teams have different ones. Kenji and Emi's group has red bands. Sadako's is black. There are purple, white, grey, orange, brown, blue, yellow, and pink, too – each team with a different colour.

Team Midori, they are called. Izuku fiddles with his armband as he stands outside Dr. Tsubasa's office.

The door is opened in a few short moments, and Youichi walks out. He's looking distressingly gaunt, but he's also eating from a large box of biscuits, so Izuku doesn't worry too much.

"Want one?" Youichi offers. He holds out the box.

Izuku picks one out, a small one that's shaped like – a bear? A cat? "Thanks."

Youichi leaves with a backwards wave, munching hungrily on his biscuits. Izuku waits until he's licked the crumbs from his fingers, leaving no evidence that's he's eaten anything, before entering Tsubasa's office. The doctor won't be happy if he finds out Youichi's been sharing his food. Youichi needs to eat more for his Quirk, after all.

Still, Izuku can't help but wish he had snuck out a few extra biscuits from Youichi's box. He and the others had really messed up in training last week, failing in the weekly mission simulation – it was a heist one. Izuku hates those.

His stomach grumbles – punishment is cut food portions until further notice, nothing but energy bars to get them through the days.

Izuku despises energy bars, especially the ones that come in lonely packs of two. The only one who hates them more is Hitoshi, who needs all the food he can get, considering he sleeps so badly at night. (Izuku is convinced it's a side effect of his Quirk. There's no reasonable explanation otherwise.)

Tsubasa greets him with a twitchy smile. The doctor is always twitchy around him.

"Hey, Tsubasa," Izuku addresses coolly.

He doesn't call him 'sensei'. Tsubasa allows it, from him.

Alright, so he might be a little bit bitter. He has a right to be. Tsubasa, after all, is the one who got him kidnapped.

"Hello, Kingpin," Tsubasa says. His hands are sweaty. "How are you feeling today?"

"Alright," Izuku lies, sitting down on the chair facing Tsubasa's desk. His stomach growls pointedly.

Tsubasa gestures nervously to the tin can filled with organic lollipops on his desk. "Help yourself."

Izuku unwraps a grape-flavoured one, then spitefully empties the rest of the can, stuffing the lollipops into his pockets so that he can share them with his team later. It's childish pettiness that would usually come from Hitoshi or Denki, but Tsubasa has always brought out the worst in Izuku.

He pops the lolly into his mouth and sits straight-backed. Izuku returns Tsubasa's uncomfortable gaze with the blank stare he usually reserves for the guards that like to push him and the others around.

Tsubasa coughs. "Taya tells me you failed last week's heist simulation."

Izuku sucks on his lollipop. Technically, Team Midori had failed together; but Izuku had made the plan, and the others had followed his lead like always, and it didn't work this time. So, yes, it's his fault that they're on energy bars for the foreseeable future.

He nods. "Yes."

"Well, then that's what we'll work on today." Tsubasa hands him a stack of worksheets and a pen. "You have… hm, twenty minutes for the first ten problems."

Ten problems, ten pages. Twenty minutes. Izuku gets to work.

They're all the same, really. Different security systems of different houses and buildings, different Quirks and skill levels to work with, different things to steal. But they're all the same.

Having a high IQ doesn't make him smarter, Izuku's found out over the years. All he can do is understand things quicker, and grasp things easier. It all depends on whether or not he can force himself to stop and think before rushing into things, and if he can plan fast and cleverly enough for it to make a difference. Tsubasa's job is to train him to do both and more.

Tsubasa is a Quirk doctor – specialist, whatever you want to call it – one of the many in the Order of the Triumvirate's service. For the others, they meet with one of the doctors at least twice a week to train their Quirks. For Izuku, who doesn't have one, he meets with Tsubasa to train his mind.

The sessions are in the evenings, two hours each. They started after the first year, after everyone else pretty much gave up hope on escape or rescue (with a select few turning to subtle acts of disobedience instead).

Usually, Izuku is given worksheets so that he can practice reading and writing at the same time. He knows that Denki and many of the others can't do either very well, not like Hitoshi who learned so that he can do his interrogation operations, or Mei who surfs the internet for hours after curfew.

He's lucky, in some ways, that support work is going to be his specialty – it means the Order spends more time on teaching him the underrated things. Like literacy.

Most languages are easy for Izuku, but understanding the words doesn't mean he can write well. It's why his worksheets are done in scribbles that resemble chicken scratch. It's not like he has the time or inclination to improve his handwriting.

Today is a multilingual day. His first problem is written in Japanese. The second is in Arabic. Izuku hates many things. He hates writing in Arabic.

Still – a chicken, a fox, and a sack of grain. Logistics and strategy and common sense. Izuku blurs through each question as fast as he can.

"This is your problem, Kingpin," Tsubasa sighs after he reads through Izuku's answers. "You rush." He underlines a section with bright red ink. "See, you overlooked the size of the windows. Do you think a muscled man of one-eighty-two centimeters will be able to fit through a 250mmx260mm window?"

"It says he's a gymnast," Izuku reasons half-heartedly.

"But you don't know for sure if he can do it," Tsubasa says. "You don't know his weight or waist size or exact flexibility. And you've given him only eight seconds."

"Nobody makes windows that small," Izuku says.

"You must _never_ rush into things," Tsubasa warns, not unkindly. "It'll get your teammates killed. Do you want that?"

"No," Izuku says, staring at his feet.

"Exactly. It's how you failed that simulation, isn't it? You didn't account for the fact that Proxy's target," a girl from Team Aoi, the ones assigned to defend the objective, "could accidentally break his control by stubbing her toe on that rock. You should have, but you didn't, and that's why you failed."

Izuku takes out the lollipop stick from his mouth and tosses it at the trash can in the corner of the room. It misses.

"I know," he says. "I won't do it again."

"Work on that," Tsubasa says, and hands him a different pack of worksheets. It's math this time. "Your intelligence is no good if you don't stop to use it."

He's right. Tsubasa is usually right.

In all the years they've known each other, Tsubasa has never lied to him – not about the chances he has of manifesting a Quirk, not about how little he's worth to the Order, not even about how his mom is doing back at their lonely little house.

She's doing fine, Tsubasa says, gently but firmly. Always firm. She's been getting out more lately, he tells Izuku.

Izuku hates him.

 _So_ much.

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

He leaves Tsubasa's office, leaving the door open behind him. It shouldn't give him this much satisfaction, hearing Tsubasa mutter about his knees as the old man gets up to close it, but it does.

Izuku's allowed to be petty, isn't he?

The hallways are far from empty at this time, and Izuku avoids making eye contact with the people he passes. Those with uniforms and guns are security, patrolling the halls in pairs. Those without are the dangerous ones: trainers and villains and others that the Order of the Triumvirate employs, who are allowed far more in how much they can order him around.

Akayo was taken to the labs a year back by one of the scientists. Her left wing was half-dissected, Izuku remembers, before her trainer found out and shot the man through the heart.

The dorms are all located in one corridor. There are no more guards in front of their doors, but handprint scanners have been installed ever since they first started learning lockpicking.

His session with Tsubasa ended at nine, and if he doesn't enter his dorm before quarter past, he's locked out for the rest of the night. That's how it is. Izuku presses the palm of his hand to the scanner next to their door. It flashes green and the door clicks open.

Denki is doing sit-ups on the floor, turning purple as he counts, "Ninety-six, n-ninety-eight…"

"You skipped ninety-seven," Izuku points out, smiling.

Denki groans. "Give me a break, man…"

Hitoshi is in the shower. Mei is nowhere to be found, probably working late in the labs again.

Izuku sits down on his bed. He watches Denki struggle for some time, letting the familiar feel of their dormitory calm his scattered mind.

It soon becomes clear to him that Denki isn't stopping anytime soon, grimly chanting the numbers while he pushes himself through the exercise. "What bet did you lose this time?" Izuku asks.

"You know me so well," Denki says. His entire body is trembling.

"What was it?" Izuku repeats curiously.

"Hitoshi –" Denki grunts, looking three seconds away from collapsing. "Hitoshi said I couldn't eat five hot dogs in sixty seconds."

"Y-you actually tried?" Izuku begins to laugh, lying down and rubbing a hand over his eyes.

"It was close, okay?" Denki whines, still determinedly doing his sit-ups. "Ten more seconds and I would've finished."

"How many do you have to do? Two hundred?" Izuku sits up abruptly. "Wait. Hot dogs?"

He can't see Denki's face as the other boy pushes through his punishment, but he is definitely sporting a shifty grin as he replies, "Hot dogs, yeah. What about it?"

"I can't – I can't believe you," Izuku says, not sure whether to fume or laugh. "You got hot dogs and y-you didn't share?"

"You were with Tsubasa," Denki says unrepentantly. "Besides –"

"We saved some for you," Hitoshi finishes. He stands in the doorway of their shared bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. He looks like a wet cat.

Izuku says as much. "You look like a wet cat."

"Shut up," Hitoshi says, irritated. "Do you want food or not?"

"We should wait until after curfew," Izuku says. Because that's when the looping system he and Mei have set into the camera feeds will start up. "We don't want security coming down on us."

"The guys on night shift don't care about things like this," Hitoshi says dismissively. He would know. He takes late shifts in the CCTV control room a lot, as punishment when Taya is angry at him or when he's particularly bored. He knows all of the night shift people.

Hitoshi drops a hot dog into his hands. It's in a paper bag with a familiar design – 7-Eleven.

Izuku examines it incredulously. "How did you even get this?"

Hitoshi looks smug. "A guard was pissing me off, so I decided to make him go for a trip down to the nearest convenience store."

"You shouldn't have done that," Izuku says disapprovingly. If the guy had, god forbid, tripped over a goddamn pebble…

"Hungry," Hitoshi mumbles as an explanation, climbing up the flimsy ladder of their bunk bed to his own mattress, the one above Izuku's. "I made him think he fell asleep, after," he adds defensively.

Izuku is guiltily grateful that Hitoshi had taken such a risk, despite the hell that would have rained down on them all if the guard had gained awareness during his errand, or if Taya had found out. Hunger is something that all of them loathe. They all miss the times when they couldn't make out each individual rib bone on their chests.

His stomach rumbles. The first bite feels like paradise, cheese inside sausage inside dry, warm bread. Crust crumbs stick to his chin; it's a wonderfully annoying feeling.

Izuku sighs contentedly. Lollipops and biscuits and tasteless energy bars are no match for actual food. And the tomato sauce – the _goddamn tomato sauce_.

One day, Izuku vows, he'll run away and become a tomato farmer. Then he'll have unlimited tomato sauce for the rest of his life and all will be well.

By the time he finishes savouring his late-night snack, Denki is done with his sit-ups and is curled up in bed, fast asleep. Izuku gets up to pull a thin blanket over the snoring boy.

He wrinkles his nose. "Denki's sweaty."

Hitoshi, who's the pickiest of them all when it comes to hygiene, looks disgusted. "He'd better shower in the morning."

"You should make him do it," Izuku suggests.

"I will," Hitoshi grumbles.

Denki always looks troubled when sleeping. Maybe it is because he can't smile his usual smile while asleep, or maybe it is because all the worries he pushes away in the daytime comes to haunt him at night. Izuku doesn't know.

It is nearly ten-thirty. Izuku settles down, arranging himself into a suitably asleep-looking position. At ten-thirty, the camera feeds will start looping, and it's best if he looks passed out at that time.

At ten-thirty-two, Izuku sits up again, feeling Hitoshi doing the same as the frame of their bunk bed creaks noisily. Denki snores on.

He unwraps another lollipop. Orange-flavoured, this time. He leans his head against the wall, closing his eyes as he sucks on bittersweetness.

The walls of their dorm are not the same as they were three years ago, when they were first pushed into this cell. Now, there is a scorch mark in one spot from the time Mei threw an untested smoke bomb, and Denki's posters, rewards collected from operations well-done, are splashes of colour against empty white. Hitoshi got them a coat rack, pinned to their bathroom door. Izuku himself has contributed a calendar, hung next to his bed.

That one he got from breaking a man's arm – someone whose breath had smelled like weed, someone who'd no doubt done something to piss off the higher-ups in some way. Taya had stood by and watched and smiled.

It almost feels like home. But it is a prison, and Izuku can't let himself forget that.

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

Taya pulls him aside after afternoon team training and gives him the orders. "This man," she says, showing him a picture. It's blurry, taken as the target was running, leaping from one rooftop to another. "We need him."

He doesn't even have to do much. Just stand there and scream, wait for the unsuspecting pro-hero to jump in, straight into a trap.

It is his eleventh operation. It still makes him feel sick.

It is past nightfall when Izuku gets off the van, Taya following. They are in a seedy town, two hours of driving from headquarters, a place where the air itself smells of cigarette smoke and cheap liquor. This alone tells him all he needs to know about the hero they will be capturing tonight.

Normally, pro-heroes stick to well-populated, respectable regions, where any fights that happen will receive good media coverage. Publicity is how they get their paychecks, after all. A hero who frequents a town like this, where nobody cares about anyone, is one of the good ones. This is a hero who cares.

It makes Izuku feel even more like shit. He knows the corners of his lips are downturned and hopes Taya doesn't notice.

Taya hands him one of her guns. It's a smaller one, easily hidden inside the pocket of the hoodie he was given for this assignment.

"If my first tranquilizer doesn't make him drop, you shoot him until he does," she instructs. "We're not taking any chances here. We want him alive, but dead is okay too."

If Taya misses, or if the hero somehow has immunity to the brand of tranquilizer she likes to use, then it _is_ best if the man dies before he can open his mouth to alert any other heroes near the area. Fights with pro heroes tend to get out of hand, and they always bring media attention. Attention which is the last thing the Order of the Triumvirate needs. Best to end things quickly – capture or kill, either one acceptable.

There is makeup heavy on his face, and his curly hair has been dyed a nondescript dark brown. Taya leans down to fix the plastic on his nose, a covering which magically makes it look both bigger and longer.

"We'd use Chameleon's Quirk like usual, but this guy…" She grimaces. "Any disguise made by Quirks won't work. The moment he lays his eyes on you, it'll fall apart."

"What's his Quirk?" Izuku asks, kneeling down to tie his shoelaces. He is wearing worn sneakers today, not the usual uniform boots. He wants to ask where they got them, but then thinks better of it. Taya will probably hit him, annoyed as she looks right now.

"Erasure." Taya checks her own gun one last time, slotting in a pack of tranquilizers. "He's always been a pain to deal with. Akagiri thinks we should take care of him now, before he gains more experience. I agree."

Their driver calls out, "He's coming. Two kilometers southwest."

Taya ruffles his hair in an attempt at encouragement. "Come on. Let's get going."

She leads him to an alleyway. They have to drag a man out of the way, a drunk who was sleeping by the dumpster. Taya shoves him out onto the street. Izuku avoids the man's unfocused eyes as he throws up and staggers away.

The driver's voice crackles into his earpiece. "Seven hundred meters south. Coming slow."

"This is an easy job. Don't fail," Taya murmurs, and leaves. She makes her way up to a rooftop across the street, long, sleek gun slung on her back. Izuku is left alone.

He tips his head back and looks at the stars. There is a streak of yellow-white flying through the night sky. A shooting star.

How did the rhyme go again? It was an English one, he remembers. Shooting star, shooting star…

He should make a wish, he thinks.

The order comes before he can. "Now," Taya says, sounding tense through his earpiece.

Izuku shouts as loudly as he can. It bursts out of his mouth, startling pigeons into taking flight. He cries for help, for a miracle, for a hero to come save him. It is all the things he wishes he had screamed out loud the day Kumo took him from the park, fingers digging into his arm as the man dragged him along. Maybe if he had…

Regret. It's something he's very familiar with.

" _Help me!_ " Izuku shouts, voice cracking.

A whisper in the wind, and a figure drops down in front of him. Long hair, long scarf – Izuku recognizes the target.

"Please," Izuku says, as helplessly as if he really was in danger. His hand is in his pocket, tight around the handle of his gun.

"Kid," the pro hero soothes. "It's okay. Tell me what's wrong –"

That's as far as the man gets before Taya's dart strikes him in the neck. Bad luck, Izuku thinks, that using the scarf leaves the neck open to attack. And that the suit wasn't zipped up fully.

The hero's eyes are wide and surprised, staring straight into Izuku's. Then they slip close and the man falls gracelessly to the ground.

Izuku approaches carefully, relinquishing the unconscious man of his scarf first and foremost. It's made of a durable, lightweight material – he's sure Mei would love to get her hands on it. Maybe after the Order's scientists have had their turn prodding at it.

He's picking through the man's vest when Taya arrives, gun once again slung casually across her back. Her skirt is dirty from kneeling on the rooftop. Izuku hands her the scarf, then the gun and knives he found hidden in the pro hero's pockets and strapped to his thighs.

"Practical," Taya hums appreciatively, examining Eraserhead's choice of weapons. "Smart man. Not one to fool around." She seems much more relaxed now that their target has been apprehended.

Their driver honks the car impatiently, and they set to work dragging the pro hero back to the van. He's surprisingly light, for a man of his profession. The dark bags under the man's eyes remind Izuku of Hitoshi, and he feels sick to the stomach once again.

He wonders what the Order will do with this one. Experimentation? Interrogation?

He hopes Taya won't tell him.

They are an hour into the drive back to headquarters when Taya stops the car. They're in front of a bookstore, one that is almost closing.

"Good job today, Kingpin," Taya congratulates him. She hands him two hundred thousand yen. "You have fifteen minutes to shop."

Izuku gets some novels, and more food from the convenience store across the road because they're running low on hot dogs. He thinks back to sharp, surprised eyes, to the pro hero tied up and unconscious in the back of the van, and it's not worth it. Not even a little.

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

 **A/N: And we're done here! Finally.**

 **I know it's been some time since I've updated… haha… I'll start replying to reviews again, too. Thank you for reading, guys.**


	6. Six - we don't need more trouble

**A/N: And here's the next update! The other chapters have also been edited for errors. Mostly.**

 **Disclaimer: Yup. Totally own BnHA. Totally.**

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

 **Six – we don't need more trouble**

Hitoshi watches the man in the chair quietly. Beside him, Tsubasa stands with a notebook in hand. He keeps flipping the pages with no real purpose, the crisp noises hurting Hitoshi's ears.

"When's the deadline?" Hitoshi asks, hands clasped tightly behind his back.

Tsubasa sighs. "Six minutes."

There's a sympathetic feel in the way he says it, but Hitoshi knows better. He isn't like Izuku, whose relationship with the old doctor is a landmine of lies and complicated history. Hitoshi knows exactly what kind of a person Tsubasa is, and if Tsubasa truly cared, he would appeal to Akagiri for an extension.

Always so willing to let him take the blame; every doctor he's worked with in Interrogations has been the same.

"I'll go and get a coffee," Tsubasa says, handing the notebook to him. Hitoshi takes it with a silent scowl. "Stay, Proxy. Watch the prisoner."

Tsubasa leaves and he watches the doctor's back with bitter disgust. One would think that he would at least have the grace to watch the hell that's bound to rain down in six minutes, but Tsubasa doesn't even do that. He flees like a coward.

Hitoshi looks down at the notebook in his hands. Labeled _NOTES - PROXY_ in his own careless handwriting, it holds dozens of pages of information gained from interrogations. Some were transcribed down himself; others by the doctors he's worked with.

He's not the only one in the Order of the Triumvirate with a Quirk suited for interrogation; not even the only one among the Project 022 kids. It just so happens that his is rather efficient – a tool that can force prisoners to reveal information willingly – in a way – instead of a messy torture Quirk. Mind Quirks are rare and nine times out of ten, Hitoshi will be called to handle a case over anyone else.

There's usually at least one doctor on standby while he does his work. 'Doctor' might even be the wrong term here – the ones he's worked with are usually supervisors at the most, meant to make sure he produces results as quickly and smoothly as possible. Sometimes a prisoner will attempt suicide and the doctor will try to keep them alive – but they always die, with satisfied gleams in their eyes. Nobody tries a suicide technique that isn't guaranteed to work.

Those suicides were the only occasions when Hitoshi failed to squeeze out the information that the Order wanted. In his own opinion, as it was those doctors' jobs to keep his subjects alive, it was never his fault. But of course, he was the one they punished. Of course.

This subject, though, is different. Hitoshi's never been faced with somebody with an Erasure Quirk before. Nor has he ever met someone with such a stubborn mind.

He glances at the clock hung on the wall. It's designed with the cheerful visage of Winnie the Pooh printed on its cheap plastic face. The cartoon bear is a brighter yellow than Denki's hair and grins just as cluelessly, as if mocking him.

The clock's minute hand moves. Five minutes left.

Hitoshi returns to staring at the man in the chair. They are separated by one-way glass that divides the room in half. He can see the prisoner; the prisoner can't see him.

On his side, there are tables filled with computers and papers and notebooks of information that look exactly like the one he holds, save for the different names scrawled in different handwriting on the covers. There are eleven other notebooks in total – eleven others who use their Quirks to acquire information for the Order. He knows Boxer from Team Aka and Ame from Team Kuro. Boxer, named for that box-like shape his mouth forms when he smiles, and Ame, short for Ame-no-Uzume, the Shinto goddess of joy.

In the prisoner's side of the room, there's not much apart from the chair and the captive himself. The chair could be mistaken for a dental engine, with straps pinning the prisoner down tightly, his legs straight and his arms tied to the armrests. The lights shine a soft yellow, as if comforting the man inside.

For physical interrogation, Hitoshi knows, those soft lights will be turned up to a setting that is near blinding. All the more discomfort for those inside, trapped helplessly in that chair.

At least in this, Hitoshi is glad that he handles most cases. His subjects rarely know pain other than that of a light headache.

…Or, in Eraserhead's situation, a pounding, aching migraine.

He's been kept awake for nearly three days. Sixteen times, Hitoshi has activated the electrocution system built into the chair. Not long enough to kill, but enough to induce moderate pain and muddle the mind. He's never had to use it this much before – it makes him feel sickened. But, faced with a deadline that's shorter than usual and the most bullheaded prisoner he's ever had to question, Hitoshi is not afraid to admit that he's been getting more and more desperate with each minute that passes.

The long-haired man's face is tight, sweat beading down his forehead.

"It's your own fault for being so stubborn," Hitoshi says aloud, leaning forward into the mic attached to the wall adjacent to the one-way glass. "It would be easier for both you and I if you just cooperated."

The man's fists clench tighter. If Hitoshi wasn't mostly sure that it would be impossible, he would think the man's veins would explode from sheer frustration. Eraserhead is pissed beyond belief, no doubt about it. Good. Hitoshi feels the same.

"I have a deadline to keep," Hitoshi says into the mic. "If you answer just one of my questions, I'll have shown signs of _progress_ and we won't be forced to move you into stage two of interrogations. You can guess what that is, right? It's going to be infinitely more painful than what I've done to you."

Eraserhead lies still. The only signs of life from him are his flickering eyes and flexing fists. Even his chest barely moves. His breaths are long and soft.

"Don't you have a family?" Hitoshi asks. "Maybe a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend – I'm not one to judge." Again, no response. "Do you own a dog? You look like a dog person."

That's a lie. Eraserhead looks very much like a cat person. The sparse profile they have of him even states that he hates dogs with a passion.

He sees Eraserhead's eyebrow twitch.

"If you give me what I want to know, I can make you forget this entire ordeal and you can go back to your life. I'm not lying." Lie. "You'll give us your information sooner or later, anyway, like everyone else."

Lie, again. There have been exactly six of those suicide cases. Hitoshi thinks about them often. Although Eraserhead is a pro hero – arrogant men and women who don't usually entertain the thought of self-immolation – he primarily works underground and looks the type of paranoid to have hidden a pill in a hollow tooth or subtle poison under his nails – things that could have been missed by Security.

"I'll ask you again," Hitoshi says calmly, even as his heart thumps faster with each second that passes. Time is running out. But Proxy is cool. Proxy is always cool. Proxy does not panic.

"What is your hero name?" he probes.

Pause. Continue. "What is your real name?"

Pause. Continue. "How old are you?"

Pause. Continue. "What hero agency do you work for?"

Pause. Continue. An endless stream of useless-sounding questions.

Most people, especially pro heroes, would have snapped and answered one by now, regardless of all the warnings they've definitely been given about all the different types of interrogation-useful Quirks that exist. They are warned about Mind-type Quirks, particularly. Quirks like Hitoshi's.

In a situation like Eraserhead's, the best he can do is stay still and silent and not respond. Mind Quirks, like most Quirks, have conditions that must be met before they go into effect. So, if isn't something unavoidable like touch or sight, then what a prisoner under interrogation should do is, well, simply nothing.

It's not a foolproof technique, but a basic one that anyone with any training at all would know. The thing is, everyone cracks and responds sooner or later. Especially if they get riled up. If Hitoshi had more time to goad and probe, he's sure Eraserhead will snap back.

"What's your hero name?" Hitoshi asks again, wishing that the man will just give in and shout _Eraserhead!_ like he no doubt aches to do.

All he needs is one verbal reply. One, and Eraserhead is his.

For a moment, he thinks that the man will answer. But the door clicks open before anything can happen, and Hitoshi squeezes his eyes shuts so tight he sees white.

"Fuck you, asshole," he breathes into the mic. "It's too late, now. You've just fucked us both over."

He lets the mic go, not bothering to put it back in its place. It falls, bobbing up and down with the length of cord that connects it to the wall.

He thinks he sees the barest hints of a smug crook of Eraserhead's lips. Any hint of concern or conflict that had been present because of Hitoshi's obviously young voice had long since disappeared. There is no more sympathy for whatever poor, brainwashed kid the pro hero had likely concocted in his brain and linked to the voice that's been hounding for a reply nonstop for days. Honestly, Hitoshi can't blame him.

He turns away from the one-way glass. None of his subjects have ever been present for this part before. His past failures occurred when the subjects killed themselves – they were nothing more than corpses lying in that horrible chair, unresponsive no matter how loudly Hitoshi screamed. He wonders if Eraserhead will be able to hear him – if the mic will be able to pick up the noises.

Probably. The Order only uses the best technology.

It is Kumo today. Hitoshi is surprised, though he doesn't show it; Kumo doesn't usually appear for things like this. A member of the Triumvirate, the three leaders of the organisation, has better things to do than overseeing interrogations.

He enters the room with soundless footsteps. Izuku is one of the best of the Twenty-Twos when it comes to quiet walking, but Kumo is better. He's no doubt trained for longer, after all.

"Doctor Tsubasa told me you have nothing," Kumo says quietly. His voice is as hoarse as always. "Is this true?"

"Yes, sir." There is no use for excuses. It is well known among the Twenty-Twos that Kumo prefers conversation to be as concise as possible. To stammer out an explanation would only infuriate him.

Kumo holds out a hand for Hitoshi's notebook. His cold fingers brush Hitoshi's as the book is passed over. Hitoshi shivers.

Kumo flips through the notebook. The last entry is dated to seven weeks ago, his last interrogation op. It was a woman that time, with clouds for hair. They turned dark and foggy as the stress of being taken prisoner settled in, and after he got what the Order wanted, Security snapped her neck and the clouds slowly dissipated. Watching it happen made Hitoshi feel funny inside, like when he thinks about his mom.

After that entry, the notes end. A short title – _ERASERHEAD_ – and a date, but nothing underneath. Only little marks where Tsubasa's pen had dug into the paper in frustration.

Eraserhead had stayed stubbornly silent.

Kumo looks down at the pitifully blank page, then at Hitoshi again. His eyes are as dark as the Cloud Woman's hair was right before she finally died.

"Failure is not good," Kumo rasps.

"Yes, sir," Hitoshi agrees.

Kumo is quiet for a while. When Kumo is quiet, he stares blankly ahead like he is thinking, and he stops moving. Like a statue. Hitoshi gazes at the man, feeling strangely calm. He always feels this way before the punishment. This way, when it starts, he feels almost nothing.

"Akagiri tells me I should be more kind," Kumo says in a musing tone.

Hitoshi's calm mood shakes and nearly shatters.

"Sir?"

"Go," says Kumo. "I will take over this operation."

Even in his tattered old hoodie and shorts, he exudes a sense of danger. Perhaps he could pass as a college student on the streets of Tokyo, but his black eyes are dead.

Those eyes are the most identifiable feature about him, as lifeless as rotten fish and a thousand times more foreboding. Otherwise, from his dark hair to his acne-scarred face, he looks nothing more than just another broke twenty-something year old.

Kumo holds the notebook out to him. "Be grateful," he sneers.

Kumo looks at where Eraserhead lies on the other side of the one-way window. Grey breath puffs out from his cracked lips, as if contemplating the best way to go about torturing information out of a man with an Erasure Quirk.

Well. Physical measures can be just as painful. Beatings, electrocution, waterboarding… sensory deprivation or overstimulation. There is also the obvious method of blindfolding the man, or carving out his eyes – he's sure the labs would be delighted with the new testing material.

But however Kumo decides to deal with this case, whether he pulls in a torture specialist or goes on with stage two himself, it's got nothing to do with Hitoshi anymore.

"Thank you, sir."

Unable to believe his luck, Hitoshi takes back the offered notebook, practically throws it on the table with the rest, and fast-walks out of the room.

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

"Just like that?" Mei says skeptically when he finishes telling them about it.

"Just like that," Hitoshi repeats, still in wonder. "No punishment at all. Zero."

All three of his teammates look doubtful at the truth of that statement, but Hitoshi isn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He'll lay low for some time, be as obedient as possible, restrain himself from doing dumb things like turning security guards into gophers, and hopefully things will turn out fine. If Kumo decided no punishment for the day, then why the heck not? It's not like Hitoshi's going to ask him why.

"I don't think the lack of punishment is the strangest thing," Izuku says quietly. "He might just be following what Akagiri suggested, like he told you. More importantly: why is he taking over the operation at all?"

Izuku has reason to be curious. Kumo has never dealt with interrogations before (as far as they know, anyway) though Hitoshi doesn't doubt he has the skill set for it. For stage two, definitely. Pain is easy to inflict. Though making sure the information they get is accurate – that's harder.

"I don't know," Hitoshi says honestly. "There's no need to think that deeply. I'm just glad he's not pissed at me."

"What questions did they want you to ask?" asks Izuku, leaning forward.

Hitoshi looks at him irritably. "Just drop it, Izuku." It comes out sharper than intended. But then again, most of what he says does.

"Hey, hey," Denki interjects. "No need to get riled up."

Izuku nods and leans away a little, surrendering easily. Mei and Denki glance uncertainly between the two of them.

They butt heads the most in their little team. Maybe just because of differences in their personalities, partly because they're both more than a little bossy, and almost certainly because Hitoshi gets annoyed easily. Very easily.

In team simulations, Izuku is undoubtedly the leader. They've never been sent out all together on an op before, not like some of the other teams, but there is nobody Hitoshi will trust more to make the right calls than Izuku. Than Kingpin. Honestly, Hitoshi trusts Izuku more than he trusts himself.

But, little stupid arguments and things like this, they build up. Hitoshi's not sure how to stop being so quick to irritate, but he's thankful Izuku's more mature and patient than the rest of the Twenty-Twos put together. Izuku is often the first to back off if a conflict arises. Things definitely would have blown up between them otherwise.

Hitoshi's shoulders are stiff. He's trying not to think about how differently this evening would have gone for him if Kumo had decided to be angry.

"Just drop it, okay?" Hitoshi tells them, a little softer this time. "We don't need more trouble."

"Especially not so soon after we failed that exercise," Izuku concedes. They all collectively frown at how badly that had gone – just goes to prove that even Izuku's tactics aren't infallible. And exactly how hard Izuku's job, as team strategist, is.

"There's no reason to go poking around just to satisfy my curiosity," Izuku says, more to himself than anyone else. "There's not even anything concrete at all about there being something strange at all about the situation. Just a feeling that there's more to this operation than usual. It has nothing to do with us anymore, and since Hitoshi has now been pulled out of the case… if he plays nice for a while, they'll forget about it and none of us will be affected."

Hitoshi can't help the almost-fond smile that crooks his lips. Izuku's doing that thing again, where he says out loud what he's thinking to help him reason things out. Outside of the tense, half-panicked atmosphere of the planning time they're given before team simulations, it's endearing.

It reminds Hitoshi of the mumbling thing Izuku used to do near-constantly before Taya scared it out of him. Taya had been very effective. Izuku doesn't even stutter outside of their dorm anymore.

"We don't need more trouble," Izuku concludes, repeating Hitoshi's words. He looks sheepishly at him. "Sorry. I won't push, promise."

 _No need to say sorry, idiot. You always do that._

"Whatever," Hitoshi says, turning to look away from them.

They're huddled together on Hitoshi's bed, simply because it's the tidiest. Izuku's, the bunk below his, is filled with homework from Tsubasa and tiny, easy-to-break pieces of machinery he's been working on, the materials nicked from the labs. Denki's is laden with junk – dirty clothes and food wrappers and probably a knife or two somewhere in there.

Mei's bed, though… It's despicable. Simply despicable. Hitoshi wouldn't sit on that mess on threat of decapitation. (More often than not, Mei is too lazy to clean up her bed before she goes to sleep, and climbs into one of the other bunks. The others can't be bothered to shove her out.) So, for lack of a better option, they laze around on Hitoshi's mattress.

"I want to learn the guitar," Mei says, sometime later.

It's enough of a change from their previous conversation topic that they all snort.

"Why so sudden?" Denki then asks.

"Do you even have the time?" Izuku points out.

And, yeah, between regular training, Quirk training, the labs, other ops, inventing, _secretly_ inventing, browsing the internet, and whatever else Mei has in her schedule, she's probably the busiest out of the four of them.

"Maa, I'll make do," Mei shrugs. "I might even give a try at weaponising it… imagine what we could do with sound waves in combat. Like Present Mic." Her eyes gleam.

It's nice to see Mei with that defiant spark in her eyes. Out of the four of them, she's probably changed the most since the earliest days of their capture. Not so loud anymore, for one thing. Still confident, but more cautious and easily spooked.

"I'll get one the next time I finish an op," Mei declares. "Learn off YouTube or something."

"It can't be that hard," Izuku says. "Maybe I'll borrow it."

"Get your own," Mei huffs immediately. Izuku rolls his eyes.

They lie down one by one as lethargy takes over. At ten-thirty – curfew for the Twenty-Twos (unless they're doing an op or something) – the cameras start looping. But for the first time in a while, they're all actually asleep when it happens.

It's more than a little cramped, how they're lying. Denki's snores are as loud as ever, and Izuku's half-sprawled on top of him. Mei is curled up on the edge of the mattress, in danger of falling off. Hitoshi manages to drag her back to safety a little, just before he drifts off.

Hitoshi should have known it wouldn't last.

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

The alarms start at nearly three in the morning. Hitoshi knows this because he's facing the opposite wall when his eyes snap open, and the first thing he sees, past Mei's wild pink hair, is that stupid Winnie the Pooh clock Denki got from an operation a few months ago.

Hitoshi had, regrettably, let slip about the dumb thing in Interrogation Room 3, and the rest had found it undeservingly hilarious. Denki somehow managed to acquire a decent copy – the bear on their room's clock is laughing instead of smiling, which isn't much better.

Izuku is the first to sit up, because he's the only morning person out of the four of them. Denki groans and Mei stirs. Hitoshi, still lying down, meets Izuku's eyes, both of them alarmed and shocked into awareness, sudden adrenaline running through them.

"Attack," Izuku manages, and then the world explodes.

-x-x-x-

* * *

-x-x-x-

 **Done! Again, the previous chapters have been edited. Thanks for reading, and for those who reviewed.**


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